
Issue No 117		26 October 2001

LaborNET	Ask Neale	Tool of the Week

Campaign Diary

Week Three: Wave Them Goodbye

In a week when our boys and girls went off to war, Labor fought a desperate battle to fight the election on the home front.

Weekend: The Man in the Funny Suit

John Howard dominates the weekend news with his attendance at the international gathering of leaders in silly shirts. He may not have cut much of a figure in the blue silken Chinese number, but the photos of George Bush engaged in a bit of simian clowning around again proved Howard is one of the world's great autograph hounds. His ability to pop up in the vicinity of newsworthy individuals was the defining moment of his performance at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, now he'd s turned it into an electoral strategy. Forget that neither Bush nor Megawati would meet with the Australian leader, that we are now so bereft of friends that we have to view isolationism as a virtue, this was killer photo-op.

Meanwhile Beazley was left in Sydney trying to run a traditional campaign, unveiling a health package that puts some of the money back into the public system through channeling GST money. Like the GST rollback, Beazley's problem is that the scope of reform has been seriously eroded by the disappearing Costello surplus and the party's commitment to balanced budgets. One wonders if the Labor brains are now ruing their decisions to politically manage the Howard government's funding of private health care - and private schools - in order to close down issues earlier in the electoral cycles. If they'd taken some pain back then, how much more money would they have to play with now: quite a bit, one suspects.

The fickle hand of national politics is again on show with weekend voting in the ACT showing another Labor regional administration regaining power. IN the space of just 18 months we've seen Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland, West Australian, Northern Territory and now the ACT vote Labor until the only Liberal government left standing is in South Australia - where the Premier's just been forced to resign. Yet for external reasons both manufactured and pure chance, the Tories are still flying high on the national stage. The desire for a balance in our flavours of government can only go part of the way towards explaining this shift.

Monday: Wave Them Goodbye

The first of what promises to be a series of set-piece farewells occur as the two leaders try to out-patriot each other as the first Australian troops head off for the War Against Terror. The Telegraph's front page says it all "Go With Pride" - the boys and girls are sailing off to war. The federal election is consigned to the editorial wasteland that is page six. Despite their earnest words, Howard and Beazley are nothing more than bit players in this story. This is war, all the images of our cultural memory are coming back to flood us, and they cut way deeper than another cheesy election campaign.

Howard has still barely released a policy - he has no money and a national crisis to keep in the swinging voters' faces. The only peep from the Coalition came from Amanda Vanstone, whose quip about the GST rollback on funerals - "you only die once" was seized on as a campaign blunder. Rollback has been released three days now and consigned to the funny pages - the constraints of an ever-shrinking budget surplus. Noone cares to say what everyone knows - the budget is really in deficit and will be found to be so at the next budget review. Howard needs the cred and Labor needs the dough.

For Beazley, the polls are beginning to bounce, as momentum from last weekend's debate feed into the polls. It's a good sign that shows that slick campaigning and no mistake politics do reap rewards. There are still the vital 20 per cent of voters still to decide. The great unkown is what they will be thinking when they enter the booth. As the Chaser crew, in the promising first edition of Election Chaser, pointed out - there are some really dumb people voting.

Tuesday: Hope Falls as Boats Sink

A national tragedy unfolds off our coastline, a tragedy that we could have prevented. Four hundred and thirty souls. Fleeing the regime the world has gone to war with, who noone - least of all Australia - will accept. Drowned because of our inability to rebuild relations with Indonesia post-East Timor. Not a phone call between our leaders, Megawati wouldn't even meet with Howard when they were in the same room. Our nearest neighbour and we are in a dysfunctional relationship with them.

Beazley states the obvious and is shot down in flames by a media that views it as a technical foul. Politicisng tragedy. As if Howard hasn't spent the past month and a bit doing the same. Beazley backs away when he should have stood firm - this will continue happening until we can negotiate a solution with Indonesia. No amount of naval ships or coastguards or draconian laws will stop it happening. But we are getting good at absorbing tragedy and we turn it into a campaign blunder.

It could have been played so differently if Kim had only taken the principled decision on Tampa all those months ago. As Howard put up the shutters, Beazley could have called for the humanitarian response - processing the boatpeople at Christmas Island and flying to Indonesia for urgent talks with the leadership. Then the Twin Tours would have exploded and Labor would have been on the side of those fleeing the Taliban. The political dynamics would now be fundamentally different and this current disaster could well have provided the circuit breaker we've been crying out for. But short-term politics triumphed and we are now experience the blowback.

Wednesday: Recovering Lost Ground

The papers hammer Beazley over "politicising" boatpeople. It is the most outrageous of claims by Howard, the man who helped manouvre us into this khaki election. He's at it again this morning, droning on about how Beazley has committed a crime against humanity; that's actually Ruddock he should be pointing at who weighed in with the sort of premeditated attack his leader was hammering Labor for. But bouncing polls, including the notoriously unreliable Morgan Gallup that had Howard 20 points ahead some four weeks ago, now have Labor in the lead. Either it shows that Labor's positive message is getting some serious purchase or that polling is now totally discredited.

The heirs apparent debate economic policy at the press Club. The Costello smirk in hopelessly suppressed overdrive as he crows about inflation figures which confirm that the economy has ground to a halt but are hailed as proof of good economic management. I'm not economist but I always thought inflation fell when things got too hot - and right now they're stone cold. The problem with all economic debate is that there are so many statistics you can construct a debate for anything - and you only had to look at Crean and Costello to accept that there is no science here, only rhetoric.

Meanwhile Bob Brown offered everyone a free solar shower if the Greens win, which they won't. The prospect seems even more remote after the Democrats swapped Senate preferences with Labor, undermining the Greens hard-line preferences strategy. The battle between the minor parties is hotting up, the Greens attracting the young Left vote and the Democrats the fewer older lefties who still believe in revolution. Both are characterising the major parties as the conservative parties and - with clear issues like immigration - there is a lot of material to work with. Natasha's scored a few laughs with her 'Two Ronnies' line and the two dogs barking ad rocks along until Nat gives us her sanctimonious smile. But the laugh of the week has been on Nat with Chaser's mock security tape of the media stalker's attempt to break into the studio. Very close to the bone.

Thursday: Three Dead Babies

The pictures of three dead children and images of their grieving father put a human phase on the humanitarian crisis that Australia is worsening for perhaps the first time. I've been running my theory around that this would have been gold for Labor if they'd taken the principled stand up front. Imagine, Howard and Ruddock having to justify their bald politics in the face of human suffering. But no, most people I bounce this off are adamant that Labor had to neutralise the issue up front to have any chance of getting into the campaign. But I still refuse to be convinced that the public, with an invitation for displaying compassion could keep their hearts closed. Regardless, the damage is done and we are all implicated.

In the evening, Beazley speaks at one of the interminable corporate fundraisers produced by PR guru Max Markson. The pretence is the 25th anniversary of Neville Wran victory in NSW, but the real game is raising funds for the run to the post. Beazley is surrounded by Labor winners: Hawke, Wran and Carr, leaders who know how to campaign. Wran's comments on refugees shows what a class act he remains - he manages to castigate Howard without implicating labor. For his part, Beazley appears more confident and assured of himself as the polls signal a real contest. Meanwhile, Howard has his one trick and he plays it again, and again: the War on Terror - tonight it's a public address outlining Australia's reasons for involvement. The images of the Rodent droning to a room full of gray-haired people are beamed in by the late-night news services, the words dissected by the boffins and, hey presto, Howard again has election profile without substance.

Out in the marginals the feedback is promising, while campaign teams are notoriously self-delusion the door-knockers say that people are warming to Beazley. It underlines the fact the Labor is, at worst holding its own on the grassroots campaign - targeted issues like Telstra, bank profits and the ABC - have all been given oxygen by Liberal gaffs. Ministers refuse to rule out privatizing Telstra, another bank announced billions in profits and Shier can't even televise a full netball game. There's a common thread: all are issues about the administration of basic institutions are the degree of responsibility the government should take. Howard is susceptible but the question remains, how significantly will these issues track in the minds of the swingers when the world is at war?

Friday: Cooking the Books

Revelations that the government have doctored the books to maintain a surplus by calling in all unspent money from government departments further underline the damage the Liberals' spending spree did to the budget before the world went pear-shaped. Remember the world post-S11, Howard was on the nose and he doled out millions on GST 'simplification' and suppressing the impact of global increases in petrol prices. Obviously feeling the heat, Howard puts out his own line, that Labor has got its budget costings wrong. There are echoes here to the Rodent's disastrous 1987 campaign when his mis-costings of health promises that sent that bid for office into terminal decline. But this time it gets lost in the white noise of war. Sometimes, it works for us.

Labor announces another policy that again gets caught in the slipstream of international turmoil. Today's its indigenous Australians, war veterans and older Australians and housing. It's as if Labor's got so much policy to get out, it can't find sufficient days to showcase them all. And that's a downside to the hit 'em late tactics - so many well-thought, well-targeted and well-intentioned policy, so little space to get them heard. Anyone who goes to the Labor website will be overwhelmed by the amount of policy up there; the problem is most people who go there will have already decided who they're voting for.

By week's end the polls are siding with our hearts, though not necessarily, our heads. Labor is in the game, they're doing well in the field, no major gaffes and heaps of fresh initiatives. But this is such a strange election at such a perilous point in history. Today we're being told bin Laden has nuclear capability; Taliban spokesmen laugh when they're asked about Australian involvement in the war, but we're over there and it will be no surprise to see casualties before we go to the ballot box. In these circumstances, Beazley has the most difficult of tasks. There will be many excuses of failure, but for a man whose career is on the line that counts for naught. He faces two weeks to stay alive and the tough stuff is still to come.

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Issue 117 contents

Interview: Brothers In Arms
Labour historian Marilyn Dodkin explains how she exposed ASIO ties with Labor Council's Cold War leadership.

Politics: Defending the Faith
Launching 'Brothers', Premier Bob Carr gave his own take on the allegations that union leaders worked with security agencies during the Cold War.

History: Surviving the Split
In this extract from 'Brothers' Marilyn Dodkin, looks at the manouverings around the establishment of the DLP.

International: Viral Attack
Postal unions in the USA are mobilizing to protect their members from the widening repercussions of an apparent bio-terrorist attack.

Unions: A Living Wage
The ACTU this week unveiled its claim for the 2002 Living Wage Case. Here's what they'll be arguing.

Campaign Diary: Week Three: Wave Them Goodbye
In a week when our boys and girls went off to war, Labor fought a desperate battle to fight the election on the home front.

Human Rights: Colombia's 'Dirty War' Against Unions
It might be tough being an organiser in Australia under the Howard Government, but spare a thought for Colombian trade unionists.

Review: Red Rag Unfurls
Ian Syson is an upfront, knockabout bloke. He heads up a new, small, independent publishing outfit called Red Rag Publications.

Satire: New Hope for Labor: Mackerras Tips Liberal Win
The electoral hopes of the Labor party have revived dramatically, after the perennially unreliable analyst Malcolm Mackerras forecast a huge victory for the Liberals.

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» With Friends Like the Banks, Who Needs Kiwis?

» Living Wage Claim For GST Rises

» New Compo Showdown Looms

» NIDA Tax Rorts Embarrass Howard

» First Case Under NSW�s New Pay Equity Principle

» Veil of Silence on Public Sector Outsourcing

» False Start for Race Day

» Union Proxy Campaign Gets A Boost

» Nauru Guards Claim Back-Pay

» Unions Await Final Triumph

» PM Claims No Aged Care Nursing Home Crisis!

» Eighty Woolies Cleaners About To Lose Jobs

» CFMEU Gets Disabled Athlete A Start

» Malaysian Solidarity Action in Sydney

» Activists Notebook